71 thoughts on “The Igniters of Fury – No. 12”

He just had to destroy it.
All these episodes that I’d forgotten about but I get reminded of when I open this site…..makes me wonder….
But HG this is an easy one, women don’t age, we don’t have birthday celebrations.
We can celebrate unbirthdays, that’s all.

My parents weren’t into celebrating much when I was a child so I don’t celebrate my birthday. Conditioning. Speaking of birthdays, it is my ex-boyfriend’s IPPS’s B-day today. I think I will send him a text and wish him a happy birthday.

The IPPS responded. He replied with a cartoon image of himself on a card with the words, Many Thanks. I asked how his grandmother and uncle were doing, as well, and gave him a message for the ex-boyfriend. Awkward would be a good word to describe this.

Yes! God help me if I didn’t try to make a big deal out of HIS birthday (no one would come – no friends). Last birthday – a week before the final discard – he gave me a small jewelry box that he was proud of because it only cost him $1 at the Goodwill store. 😢 But the next day he made a HUGH deal with so much psychological abuse to take my wedding and engagement rings off and give them to him. It took me a long time with cool water and soap to get them off. He stood over me in a very cruel and intimidating way, yelling and insulting me, telling me that I was not “good enough” to be his wife before I was able to give them to him. I was heartbroken and sobbing. He smirked and walked out the door – not be come home for 48 hours.

I miss my now-grown daughters that he kept out of my life. Holidays with them now are loving, accepting, forgiving, and I cry for completely different reasons. Richard stole their childhood years from us out of jealousy. BASTARD!

Hmmm. I think I have mentioned before…when living with the tHiNg he bought a kettle that WE needed. That, was my birthday present! Left on the counter with a card while he was off stalking me, in a rage (Id gone grocery shopping for 1 hour!). I beat him home but holy crap! The fury ignited because (I can only assume) he didnt find me. The idiot didnt even leave the ‘present’ and card on the right day!! My birthday was the NEXT day!!! Pfft!

…yes I can remember…that birthday when eeeeverybody called me, eeeeverybody was congratulating me, everyone but he…all the morning having calls, texts…and he standing there, no words, no attention for me…
And (after all the morning waiting) when he at 4pm, suddenly said
Happy Birthday Bri…!!
And me, in that moment thinking: did he forget it? why did he do that?
ha, ha, ha….
Bri, aaaalways blind…

He forget my birthday (6 september). No message, no call, nothing by him. I asked him some day after that when was my birthday and he answered “the last of september”… it was 2 years that we were in relationship…

First birthday ruined with an unwanted Narc rage because of the contents of a ready meal that was my birthday dinner off Narcypants. (He was always generous to a fault.) Second birthday ruined when he shoved a b/card and a book through my letterbox while he went off to the Lakes with anothet woman. How do I know? He uploaded his pics on my comp and there was his ‘companion’ in one of the pics. He’d taken it on my birthday. Lump of black-tarred excrement to go with his black heart.

You are not alone. I’ve since spoken to my narc and what comes across overwhelmingly (after a long NC) is their inability to admit their vulnerability and communicate this. It is this lack of emotional intelligence That makes them angry and take flight. It is not our failure and not our problem. This knowledge has given me strength. I hope it does for you too. x

My favorite cake for my birthday is carrot cake. My ex narc said “it was a stupid choice for a birthday cake because no one else could possibly like it.”

“…you should get a cake that everyone likes (translation: that he likes). Plus that cake that my mother (or kids) got me is pathetic. They obviously didn’t put any thought into it like he would have. If he had produced or procured the cake it would have been so much more superior. They must just not care about me very much.”

Meanwhile my mother would have a narc off with him by whispering in my ear about her disappointment in the lack of (it just hasn’t arrived yet – said the ex narc) or crappiness of a gift from my narc. He couldn’t possibly care about me very much if he failed so hard in the gift department.

Birthdays: good times.

This last birthday I got a fucking carrot cake for my fucking birthday and fucking liked it and bought myself a present.

I always had small birthday parties at work, but absolutely nothing at home except maybe a “humorous” card signed with just his initial – totally unromantic and just made me cry for his lack of attention, etc.

Next year I’m going to buy myself a cake (Italian crream) and a nice gift.

HG a slight aside I know, but I want to ask, can humour from your target take the sting out of your tail?.
I only wonder if it can be a strategy in the devaluation.
I heard an amazing documentary about a woman who had been kidnapped. During the ordeal her kidnapper left her in isolation bound and gagged for the whole day coming back late at night. Thinking she was going to be murdered when he did appear she joked with him: “And what time do you call this???” He saw the funny side and let her go…. I suppose in this way she was refusing to be his victim.

My 30th birthday present from my Narc boyfriend was a stolen car stereo that didn’t work. When he gave it to me it fell out of the box because being nicked, it was not in the right packaging. When it fell to the ground he blamed me. You know HG at least you give your girlfriends decent presents from time to time.

After 25 years of marriage I’d come to dread my birthday. It would start out fine but by dinner he was giving me the silent treatment. This has happened too many times to count. I’ve never understood it and I didn’t deserve it. My last birthday was a happy one because I left him for good two weeks before it.

I will say he gave me two presents for my birthday to which I am sure the surprise look on my face was amusing. Lol I asked if I it was going to bite me. He knew how I felt about birthdays.

He gave me a knife, I still own it. I got rid of a lot of stuff but there has always been something about the knife from the first time I picked it up. It never truely belong to him…..
The other present well let’s just say I left it the day I walked.

Him: (holding a knife and with quiet menacing voice) I dont like how holding a knife makes me feel.
Me: well quit fucking around and try a spoon.

Also: with ex husband (who I never identified as being a narc…..)
After an argument one night, I went to bed and awoke with something cold against my back and heard whispering. I turned around to find an axe in the bed and him staring and whispering chop chop chop.
It did give me pause but I did not jump or act alarmed. I responded with: little early for camping isnt it? And turned back over.

NA – omg that’s awful! You mention those instances so calmly….did you really roll over saying that about camping?? Were you just totally unperturbed by him or had you been so systematically emotionally abused that you didn’t take him seriously despite it being a very disturbed thing for him to do?

Also….what’s with the knife pattern here…I also remember an instance where my now ex husband and I were having a “heated debate ” in the kitchen when one of our children came running in from the garden waving his little arms and crying out “No! No! No mummy daddy! No!” He was all of 3 years old. We stopped arguing I picked him up everything carried on as normal etc.

I had been prepping dinner and my husband was behind me. Later in two separate conversations not even on the same day but in this order, he said he’d only stopped because (our son) had come in upset and that he’d been holding up a kitchen knife in his hand behind me.

I thought he meant he’d stopped arguing because our son came in. And his knife comment kind of washed over me for the reasons behind my question to you above about systematic abuse.

At the time I thought my son was upset and shouting because we were arguing but actually he may well have been reacting to what he saw in his daddy’s hand. And possibly saved my life.

Now my husband did catch me off guard once pinned me to the couch knife to my throat and another in my side. I just stared at him. I mean really, I sure as hell wasn’t going to beg, cry or anything else. I just didn’t react. He threw the knife into the wall and went to bed. Needless to say I packed a bag and disappeared once I knew he was asleep. He died before I could get the divorce started. It was hell thou once he realized I was going through with it.

I spend a lot of time in the woods alone. Yet I believe his reason behind that particular one was to sow ever presence. Out of all of his weapons I took a particular interest to this specific knife, the color reminded me of a dream so I never associated it to him. Why I kept it.

Hi Twilight!
I’m glad you find peace in the woods.
I was at the ocean in February and I miss it already. I love all the sensory there.
They always have a reason for everything. It’s good that you have found your own reasons for liking it and wanting to keep it.
My ex had a fascination with knives. I was never ever threatened with one like the stories I have read on this thread but she showed me many pictures of knives and we looked at them out in the stores. She kept her grandfathers in cases. He was the only person she trusted.
It might also have to do with her cutting.

Hi Snow White
Where did you go to see the ocean?
Yes the ocean can be very therapeutic. There are days where I can smell the salt air where I live. Usually after a hurricane, lol. It is amazing how everything just feels, looks and smells after the fact.
Nature is a close to silence as I can get, one reason why I moved out of the city.

That may very well be why she has a fascination with knives, yet only she knows.
For me it can be a tool or weapon just depends on how it is being used in the moment.

Hi Twilight!
How are you???
I would love to move to the ocean some day. My favorite ocean was in St. Thomas and St. John. I loved the turquoise waters. I have been up and down the east coast and to Hawaii. I loved the way you described the sensory about the salt air.
After I left my ex and a few weeks passed I noticed how I could breathe the air differently, notice the blue sky, feel the wind and the sun. It was like feeling nature as would have as a child.
It was a unique experience.
Some days I still feel that way.

I just read your story about your ex and the knife and I’m soooo glad that you had the strength to get away. That must have been horrendous to experience that.
Hope you got some time off for the holiday or are planning some for the summer. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Snow White
I just had time to read the thread
I mentioned about receiving a knife for my birthday from my ex to which I was speaking about. So I thought you were referring to that not the incident between my husband and I.
I don’t think about what my husband did very often. He went into a rage because I left the bed, I thought he was asleep and went to get something to drink. He caught me in the living room on my way back. I remember what I saw when I looked into his eyes. I accepted in that moment I was going to die by his hand, so I just didn’t react to him. I was very much at peace with the entire situation.
I left because I had to make a decision and needed to be away from him. Things were not getting better and the threat of my children being killed in an “accident ” was no longer viable. He lost control over me. Henceforth I decided to divorce him, like I said he died before I could. Guess he had the last word on that one.

I have a question and I’m very torn. When we were together we made abouf six beautiful mahognany “treasure chests.” When he discarded me and I had to leave he put my three in with my things to go to my new place. I thought the boxes were given with love and pride when he gave them to me years ago. His name is engraved inside. I kept all my momentos in them. My question is: Do I keep them out of sight (though I know where they are deep in a clioset) or do I destroy them? Will I regret it later if I do?

I know who he is and what he’s done, but somehow I still wait for the call to come “home” (if I BEHAVE). It’s been a year (two days before Thanksgiving of course) and I still “miss” him. NC for a year. 😢

Destroy them. They are reminders of something you do not need to be reminded of.

It is understandable that you miss him, however this is your emotional thinking looking to make you connect with him. Logic tells you there is nothing to miss and no need to connect with him every again.

HG sometimes I think you are a mind reader!
It just so happens that today is literally my birthday. My Mother sent me an email. It said in the subject line: Getting Old.

05-15-68 49 what?

That was it. Nice right? Projection much? She is obviously worried that she is getting old. In fact every year she makes a remark about how my age affects her. I’m no contact with her but she cannot resist thought fuel I guess. Am I close HG?

For his birthday I have organised some entertainment tickets, dinner, personalized gift and his favourite M&S Caterpillar cake. (Haha)
For my birthday I have received a silent treatment and been discarded a week later.

I can remember looking so forward to my birthdays as a little girl. Then by my teens and onward I would dread them. There was always so much disappointment and anxiety. Mothers Day was always the same. Decades passed that way.

Then one year I seized the power and decided I had successfully raised 4 children, I deserved a happy Mother’s Day. I bought myself something really nice that I’d been wanting (a puppy) and picked out a lovely card. I had a very happy day with my new puppy and showed all my family him and my beautiful card that I got for Mother’s Day! My family seemed a little nervous and confused, but stayed pretty quiet. It was the first happy Mother’s Day I’d ever had!

That was a turning point for me. I realized that happiness comes from within and none of my family could take it from me if I didn’t let them. From then on I always buy myself something I really want for Mother’s Day, my birthday and Christmas. I get myself cards and the cakes I want and truly celebrate! 🎉

If our birthday ignites fury just on its’ own, if they purposely time an overseas ‘work’ trip for your birthday week then ‘forget’ your birthday but a family member sends them pictures of you out enjoying yourself & you’re not at home pining, I guess this would infuriate them more?

Vashti, leave his birthday party with one of his lieutenants and stay with that lieutenant over night (no sex). Let all people see, that you prefer someone else. That was my birthday gift. In the past I felt guilty about my behaviour now I am proud of it. He really deserved that kind of birthday gift.

I decided to turn the tables in his last birthday and gave him nothing. No card, no present, no birthday breakfast in bed, no surprise party… He actually lasted until the evening til the fury finally broke out. So I have him the silent treatment and went to bed. Payback’s a bitch

I think my ex just loved planning things for my birthday so she could get me away from from family and then she could come up with ways to hurt me

I got the silent treatment and her turning her back on me in bed, turning her head when I tried to kiss her, and all her victim cries.
It was never worth going away and celebrating the way she wanted. And everything that she gave me was only another way to get to me later on.

Eleven birthdays together and the most. He ever did was send a “funny” card with only his initial as a signature. Once he took me to Denny’s for my birthday. The waitress made more of a fuss than he did. He just sat there and ate.

One thing I’m grateful for status post horrible final discard is that I get my children back, and I’ll be able to celebrate holidays again! In all those years we sat out every single holiday. Rather, Richard sat is his room and smoked pot nonstop, coming out only to eat. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, anniversary, and every damned birthday too. He spoiled all of them.